


Doctor Who: Happy Landings

by RodimusDoctor



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-13 00:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1206064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RodimusDoctor/pseuds/RodimusDoctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fresh from his regeneration, the 11th Doctor must contend with a crashing TARDIS and a burning coat.  His troubles really begin, however, when he encounters a hungry weevil named Janet and some jackass from his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doctor Who: Happy Landings

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in-between the end of The End Of Time Part II and The Eleventh Hour.

“Geronimoooooo!” the freshly-regenerated Doctor cried, clutching tight to the burning console. What a fantastic way to start his new life – plunging to Earth in an exploding Tardis that had long since passed terminal velocity. The shields were down, the controls all but inoperative, and look at that! His blazer was on fire! A blazer ablaze, blazing away!  
Before him, the viewscreen informed him that impact would take place in 27 seconds. And then it erupted in a shower of sparks.  
Twenty-seven seconds to do something clever before the Tardis impacted with enough force to level… quick calculation… Blackpool, at least! How was he going to get out of this one?

J’Kass knew he would get out of this one. After all, he’d faced far worse, most of it in the last four years. Yes, there was who knew how many tones of rock still to shift on top of him, but he hadn’t become the leader of the Sycorax by giving up!  
It had been a long, slow recovery since the day he’d fallen off the side of his own ship. The impact should have killed him; instead, he’d been snared by a tractor beam. And released. And snared again. And released again. It turned out the human operating the tractor beam was from Torchwood, but he didn’t know how to properly use the device. The human slowed his descent enough that his landing wasn’t fatal – instead, it merely broke every bone in his body. The last thing he’d seen before he lost consciousness was a recently-severed hand; the hand of the one who’d defeated him, the Doctor. And it was perfectly intact. The human had not had any difficulty snaring that, apparently.  
His battered body was taken to Torchwood One, and it was there he was interrogated as his body slowly healed. Following the battle of Canary Wharf, he was transferred to Torchwood Three in Cardiff. For his crimes, he was locked in a drawer, there to sleep until the time of his sentence was up.  
And then, something had happened. He’d awoken in darkness with the sound of crumbling and an echo of cataclysm all around him. He’d slithered out of his now-inoperative capsule to find nothing but rubble. The Torchwood Hub had been destroyed, and he’d been buried alive!  
And so he’d started to dig. Up and up, a bit at a time, for who knew how long. He was hungry, weary, but determined. With his people gone, he had just one purpose left. Somehow, he would find the Doctor, the one who’d defeated – humiliated! – him, and he would see how many limbs the time lord could grow back this time.  
The next chunk of rubble shifted easily, and suddenly he saw the night sky. He’d done it – he’d made it to the surface! He punched at the rock around him, shoving it out of his way. In moments he was free; he collapsed on the surface of the crater, exhausted from his efforts, and stared up at the stars.  
One of them appeared to be falling. And it was falling toward him. Very quickly.

“Aha!” the Doctor cried. “I am brilliant. Ow!” he added, and he threw off his blazing blazer. Okay, so he’d forgotten it was on fire. But he was still brilliant.  
Because he’d saved the Tardis, himself, and a good-sized chunk of planet Earth. With a bit of jiggery-pokery he’d managed to align the Tardis’ descent with the rift in time and space in Cardiff, reasoning that he could use the rift energy as a buffer to slow his descent. It would still hit with something of a whallop, but it would be much less… whallopy. Not quite a Geronimo, then, but still a definite Look Out Below.  
“Should be landing in…” he checked the monitor, then remembered it was broken, “about five, four, three…”  
The Tardis hit the ground and ricoched, flinging the Doctor over the console and into one of the two remaining coral columns. Scarcely had he absorbed the impact of that when the Tardis hit again and went into a spin. The Doctor flew in another direction, straight for the doors. Which, he noticed, were both open.  
The Doctor was still trying to think up an appropriate swear word as he sailed out of the Tardis and into the surprised arms of the Sycorax leader.

J’Kass had barely avoided being crushed by the burning blue box when it slammed into the rubble. He recognized it immediately; it was the alien technology he’d teleported aboard his ship that fateful day. That amusing human female had emerged from the device.  
And so had the Doctor. Which meant he might be inside the blue box right now. Possibly burning to death.  
J’Kass was just starting to enjoy that particular thought when the device struck the ground again and opened. It spun around in the air, and J’Kass had a brief glimpse of an impossibly large space within.  
And then a raggedly-dressed humanoid flew out and hit him in the chest. He fell backward to the ground, and the humanoid landed on top of him.  
“Oh dear I’m terribly sorry,” the humanoid said. “I’m the Doctor, by the way, and oh it’s you.”  
J’Kass didn’t recognize the man; he wasn’t the Doctor that had bested him. Was this another Doctor? Someone who had stolen the blue box from the real Doctor, perhaps? The device was clearly a transport of some kind. If he could get his hands on it…  
“Get off me!” J’Kass said, shoving the Doctor off. “Who are you? And what is that blue device?”  
“You don’t recognize me, then?” the Doctor said, leaping to his feet and assuming a boxer’s stance.  
J’Kass looked him over, and did not bother to hide his contempt. This Doctor was thin and scrawny, his attempt to look threatening laughable. Then again, the original Doctor hadn’t looked all that threatening, either…  
“I am J’Kass, leader of the Sycorax people,” J’Kass said. “I have never seen you before, but I have seen that device.” He pointed at the blue box, which had just bounced off the side of a building.  
“You remember that, but you don’t remember me?” the humanoid said, and then his hands went to his face. “Oh, right. That’s funny, because the last time I changed, you were there too. And now here I am, and there you are again, and did you just say your name is J’Kass?”  
The Sycorax Leader sneered. For some reason, his name always brought out mirth in humans.  
“I haven’t time for this,” he said. “That device is a transport. How far is its range?”  
“Oh, pretty much infinite,” the Doctor said. “But I’m not letting some J’Kass get his hands on it.”  
“Do you plan to stop me?” J’Kass laughed.  
“Oh, I don’t need to stop you,” the Doctor said. “I just need to beat you to it.”  
So saying he took off, racing after the hovering blue box that was even now making its way into an intersection. J’Kass snarled and ran after him, determined to reach the device first.

Nearby, Janet watched. He’d been intrigued when the pointy-headed creature had emerged from the rubble. He’d done the same thing only a few hours before. He’d needed some time to rest after his escape from the Hub, but the pointy-headed one still seemed very energetic. For that matter, so did the one who’d come from the blue thing. They might be too dangerous to eat. And the pointy-headed one looked far too bony.  
The blue box came his way. It spun, and on each revolution Janet saw the inside of it through a couple of flapping doors. Perhaps there was food in there. Food would be good; he was very hungry. Not as hungry as he’d been when he’d first emerged from the rubble – luckily he’d found a pet store, with several puppies and kittens sleeping in the front window – but hungry none the less.  
Janet left the alley and ran toward the blue thing, hoping whatever food he found inside would taste better than wiener puppy snout.

The Doctor ran faster, determined to catch up to his Tardis. Run, run, run, that’s all I ever seem to do, he thought. I only regenerated five minutes ago! Shouldn’t I be having a nap right about now?  
Behind him, the Sycorax leader (the Doctor couldn’t even think his name without smirking) was falling behind. What’s he even doing here, the Doctor wondered. And why isn’t he dead? Who does he think he is, the Master? Well, he’d worry about him when he got the Tardis back.  
Ahead, the Tardis gained a bit more altitude. If it wafted much higher, he might have to climb a building to get it!  
Someone – something – was running at him from the opposite direction. It had a large bald head, a fearsome mouth full of teeth, and it wore a drab grey jumpsuit. For a moment the Doctor feared it was coming for him. Instead, it climbed up onto a parked car, then leapt through the air and caught hold of the Tardis bottom.  
“Oh no you don’t!” the Doctor said. He pulled the same trick, running up and over a car, then jumping and grabbing hold of the bald alien’s legs.

“No!” J’Kass roared. The device was flying higher, and the raggedy Doctor was escaping with it.  
And he, J’Kass, was out of breath. He’d had a burst of energy when the device had come at him, but now the hours of digging and tunneling had caught up with him. He stopped, leaned against the side of a car, and watched his best chance to escape this planet – and quite possibly, his shot at vengeance – fly away through the night sky.  
“Excuse me.”  
J’Kass spun around and saw a uniformed male human standing on the sidewalk. He had a steaming white cup in his hand, and a black belt containing weapons. The one on his right hip was a projectile weapon not at all unlike the ones those Torchwood people carried.  
That could be very useful, J’Kass thought.  
“What are you doing, leaning against my…” the human said, and then he dropped his cup of steaming fluid. “What are you?” he added, and there was fear in his voice. He fumbled for his weapon; J’Kass sprang forward and tackled him, and wrenched the weapon from the man’s hands.  
“Thank you,” J’Kass said, and he punched the human hard in the face. The blonde man passed out, and J’Kass sprang to his feet. He wasn’t beaten yet!  
In the distance, he saw the blue box heading toward a tall building. If he could get there and scale that building, he might yet have a chance to get inside.  
A truck drove past just then, heading in the direction he needed. J’Kass leapt and grabbed hold, then climbed his way to the roof. The truck continued on its way through Cardiff, its new passenger riding on top.

The Doctor clung tightly to the legs of the bald-headed creature – what had Captain Jack called them? Weevils – that was trying to get inside his Tardis. The weevil was very strong, and had nearly succeeded in kicking him off a couple of times.  
“Stop that! Jus stop it,” he cried. “This is my Tardis, and you are not going to steal it!”  
The weevil, who’d been in the process of shaking his legs, paused. Then it looked down at him.  
“You… talk?” it said, sounding astonished.  
“Yes, I do,” the Doctor said. “Quite a bit sometimes.” He realized the weevils didn’t have anyone who spoke their language on this planet. He was very likely the first person to communicate with this weevil since it crossed the rift.  
“I can help you,” the Doctor said. “I can take you back home, if you’ll let me get back inside.”  
The weevil appeared to consider it.  
“Got… food?” it asked.  
“Yes, yes, plenty!” the Doctor said.  
The weevil appeared to consider that as well. Then, apparently reaching a decision, it reached down and grabbed the Doctor by the collar of his shirt. With a grunt, the weevil tossed the Doctor over its head and into the Tardis.  
“Oof,” the Doctor said, then, “Oww!” The console and surrounding walls were still aflame, as was much of the floor, and he’d burned a couple of fingers.  
“Help me up,” the weevil called.  
“Right,” the Doctor said, wincing as the weevil took his burnt hand. “Ow, ow, owww ow. There we are,” he said with relief as the weevil climbed inside. “Sorry about the mess, bit of a problem with the, um… everything. I should really do something about the flames before…”  
“Food,” the weevil said. “Where is the food?”  
“Ah, yes. Let me go check the pantry,” the Doctor said. “I’m the Doctor, by the way. You would be…?”  
“Hungry.”  
“Well yes, but I meant your name. You do have one, don’t you?”  
“Janet,” the weevil said after a pause.  
“Janet,” the Doctor repeated. “O-kay. Just be a moment, Janet.” He leapt through some flames and over a fallen coral pillar, heading for the pantry at the back. All the while he wondered if feeding a weevil while his Tardis burned was a good idea. Even having a weevil on board didn’t seem like a very good idea. But he was a brand new Doctor, and didn’t yet know what he thought was a good idea. Maybe this would seem like a better idea later on. Or possibly not.  
He’d find out in due time.

J’Kass watched as the Tardis closed in on the building. He would not make it there in time; it would hit, then go off in another direction. At that moment the truck he stood upon made a left turn, away from the path of the blue box, ending what little chance he’d had.  
J’Kass considered shooting the truck driver for his foolishness. It wouldn’t change matters, and might draw unwanted attention to himself, but it might bring him a little bit of joy. J’Kass examined the gun; it was a primitive projectile-launching device, but it would serve.  
There was a loud crash in the distance; J’Kass turned and saw the device hitting the building and shattering many windows. Then, the device wafted away, and started to float downward! Directly in its path was a multi-level lot for the humans’ petrol-powered vehicles.  
He had another chance! J’Kass leapt from the truck, landed on a parked car and hopped down to the street. He ran for the vehicle lot, giving it everything he had left.

Janet stood beside the Tardis console, warming himself by the fire. There had been a large crash earlier when the transport had hit something, but the weevil had no concern for that.  
It did, however, seem strange to him that this Doctor would have so many fires burning inside his transport. But then, what did he know about transports? Maybe this one was flame-powered.  
He hoped the Doctor would be back with food soon. If he didn’t, he would have to chase and eat him. It would be sad if it came to that; as much as Janet liked eating people, this Doctor was... different. He treated him not as a monster to be captured, but as just another person. Perhaps he could even trust him with his real name instead of the one his captors had given him.  
There was a clatter noise from the other side of the console, and then the Doctor reappeared with several unappetizing objects in his arms.  
“Hello, I’m back!” he said. “I’ve got lots of yummy fruits and vegetables here. Would you fancy a zucchini?”  
“Zu... what?” Janet said. “No! Meat! Give me meat.”  
“Oh,” the Doctor said. “I’m afraid I’m fresh out.”  
“You have meat,” Janet said, approaching him.  
“I really don’t,” the Doctor said. “I would have seen it when we hit that bump just now, because everything fell all over me and none of it was oh, is that what you mean?”  
Janet licked his teeth. As much as he was able to, he smiled.  
“O-kay,” the Doctor said, and he threw his armload at him. Janet roared as oranges, tomatoes and carrots hit him in the face. He charged after the Doctor, leaping over the flaming console and landing in front of him.  
“Hey! Not fair,” the Doctor said, ducking under the weevil’s arm as Janet took a swing at him.  
The Doctor tried to get away, but he tripped on a broken bit of flooring and fell flat on his face. Janet reached down, grabbed the back of the Doctor’s shirt and hauled him up, jaws open and ready to bite. At the last moment, the Doctor spun around and shoved something into his mouth.  
“Have a mango,” he said.  
Janet chewed the offending fruit and was about to separate the Doctor’s head from his shoulders when he realized the mango was delicious. He chewed more slowly, savoring it, and he let the Doctor go.  
“Not bad, eh?” the Doctor said with unmistakable relief in his voice. “And there’s plenty more where...”  
Suddenly the Tardis hit something else, and they were both thrown across the room. Janet landed on the console, then roared with pain as he was burned. He rolled off and swatted at the flames on his jumpsuit.  
The Doctor landed near the open doors, beside some of the fruit he’d tossed at Janet a moment earlier. He looked up, and saw out the doors what looked like a parking garage. And there was someone running towards them...  
“Oh,” the Doctor said, stretching that ‘o’ to the breaking point. He leapt to his feet and reached for his sonic screwdriver to lock the Tardis doors...  
Too late. J’Kass leapt from the third floor of the parking garage through the open doors and into the Tardis.  
“Don’t move, Doctor!” he snapped, pointing a police issue gun at the Doctor. “I am taking your transport, whatever it is. Why is it on fire?”  
Around the side of the console, Janet stood with a groan of pain. J’Kass turned to look, and the Doctor used the distraction to draw out his sonic screwdriver and disable the gun.  
Except it wasn’t his sonic screwdriver. It was a zucchini.  
“Ah,” the Doctor said.  
And then J’Kass shot him. The bullet tore through the zucchini into the Doctor’s hand, severing his thumb and sending it flying. The bullet continued on its path into the console, sending up a fresh spray of sparks and causing the Tardis to accelerate.  
Janet caught the Doctor’s thumb and ate it.  
The Doctor stared at his maimed hand in disbelief for a moment, then he screamed, “Owww!”  
“Any more foolishness, Doctor,” J’Kass said, “and I will shoot your heart.”  
“Which one?” the Doctor asked, clutching his hand while subtly moving his foot. “Never mind, I need them both. Just give me a moment while I grow a new thumb.”  
“Enough!” J’Kass said. “I have a weapon, and I will use it if you and your… creature do not demonstrate how to pilot this…” his voice trailed off as he watched a new thumb grow on the Doctor’s hand. “You… you are not just another man named the Doctor, you are the Doctor!”  
“Yes I am,” he replied. “And this is my Tardis. And you, jackass, are not welcome.”  
“It is pronounced J’Kass!” the Sycorax leader snarled. “And welcome or not, if you do not wish to die…”  
“We’ve been through this before,” the Doctor said, “and we both know how it ends. I gave you your chance, and you lost. Now get out of my Tardis!”  
The Doctor took a step forward, and flicked the orange by his foot into the air. It struck J’Kass in the forehead, stunning him and putting him off-balance. He stumbled back toward the open doors, but didn’t quite stumble far enough.

Janet watched the exchange between the two aliens; the Doctor, and one who appeared to have the same first name as his captor Jack Harkness. The Doctor had been decent to him, but his thumb had been exquisitely delicious. On the other hand, the one called Jack Ass seemed ready to kill the Doctor, and Janet doubted he’d share the burning transport with him. He probably wouldn’t offer him any food, either.  
When the Doctor flicked the fruit at the Jack Ass’ face, Janet could tell the Jack Ass was not going to fall out the doors. He would recover, and then he would kill the Doctor, and then him. And there would be no more food, ever. Janet made up his mind, lowered his head and charged.

J’Kass was just recovering his balance and taking aim at the Doctor when Janet’s head struck him in the chest and knocked him out the open doors behind him. Not again, he thought as he plummeted away from the Tardis.  
Janet nearly went with him. Luckily, he was able to grab hold of one of the Tardis’ swinging doors.  
“Déjà vu can be deadly,” the Doctor said as he arrived at the doorway just in time to see J’Kass swallowed up by the darkness below. “Ooh, that’s not bad. Not great either. Death by déjà vu. That’s a bit better...”  
“Doctor!” Janet cried, holding the door for dear life.  
“Hold on, I’ll get you!” the Doctor said. There was one remaining coral pillar next to him, the one he’d tossed his coat over before he’d regenerated. And in the right-hand pocket...  
“Aha!” the Doctor cried, extracting his sonic screwdriver. “Don’t want to be without this.” He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the door’s hinges, and the door swung shut.   
“Much better,” Janet said as the Doctor helped him back inside. He smelled the Doctor, and the scent was nearly as powerful as the taste of that thumb...  
“There you are, safe and sound,” the Doctor said. “Well, as safe as anyone could be in this thing. I don’t suppose you saw a thumb? Can’t have bits of me lying around, that always leads to trouble...”  
“I ate it,” Janet said, eyeing the Doctor hungrily.  
“Did you? Well, that takes care of that, I suppose,” the Doctor said, and he spun around and went back to the console. “Now, I’ve got some repairs to do, some fires to put out.” He spun around again, and noticed the look on Janet’s face. “Are you eyeing me hungrily?”  
“You taste good,” Janet said as he advanced slowly toward the Doctor. He felt badly for what he was about to do, but some instincts just couldn’t be ignored.  
The Doctor backed away, and searched the floor for another mango. There wasn’t one, but he did spy a couple of apples, a tomato, and...  
“Are you sure I can’t interest you in a banana?” the Doctor said, holding the fruit enticingly and protectively in front of him.  
Janet charged. The Doctor ran around the console. And stopped, just as Janet leapt over the console and landed in front of him.  
“Oh, right,” the Doctor said, and he ran the other way.   
Janet chased him toward the Tardis doors. The Doctor waited for the right moment, then dropped the banana. Janet slipped on the banana and fell forward and slammed into the doors. The Doctor debated in his mind whether or not Janet had had his one chance to surrender, then realized he’d already pointed his sonic screwdriver at the doors. It seemed his new persona was a bit less forgiving. The doors opened, and Janet fell out.  
But Janet managed to snag the Doctor’s tie just as the doors opened, so when he fell he pulled the Doctor with him.  
“Hey!” the Doctor cried, and he threw out an arm and grabbed the edge of the Tardis floor. With his other hand he grabbed his tie, then yanked it out of Janet’s hand. Janet fell away, and the Doctor watched as the weevil plummeted down into the same darkness that had engulfed the Sycorax leader.  
“No one,” he said, “eats the Doctor.”  
Satisfied, the Doctor turned his attention back to his current predicament. He grabbed hold of the Tardis edge with both hands, and felt a burst of relief when he felt his sonic screwdriver just inside. He’d dropped it when he’d fallen, and had feared it was lost.  
He looked ahead to see where the Tardis was taking him, and was delighted to see Big Ben in the distance. Quite a distance he’d travelled in such a short span of time. And, given the appearance of certain buildings and the absence of others, he realized he must have travelled in time as well. Twelve years, at least. That bullet may have done more damage than he’d thought. He had a lot of work to do.  
Assuming, of course, he could get back into the Tardis! And hopefully steer himself around a collision with Big Ben. The Doctor reached out and took hold of his sonic screwdriver, and tried to do something clever.


End file.
